Parliament has dismissed two of the most powerful members of President Hamid Karzai’s council of ministers. One minister has stepped down, the second will but follow.
Parliament has dismissed two of the most powerful members of President Hamid Karzai’s council of ministers. One minister has stepped down, the second will but follow. Mohammad Reza Gulkohi takes a close look at moves by the Afghan legislature and executive.Karzai’s defence minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and interior minister Bismillah Khan Muhammadi were sacked by the Wolesi Jirga, lower house of parliament, on Aug. 4. The ministers had been summoned to answer lawmakers concern over the government’s seeming passivity with regard to the continuing border shelling in Kunar province by Pakistan.
Advantage Parliament
Sadiqizada Neeli, a member of parliament (MP), voted in favour of the no-confidence motion against the two ministers. “The action of the MPs was the most justifiable possible action,” he said. “Security had broken down on the border, and if Parliament had not taken a stand, both the people and the media would have been very disappointed with us,” he added.
Not unexpectedly Parliament’s assertion of power has stoked fears of fresh political turmoil. Waheed Muzhda, a political expert, thinks there is a wider conspiracy. “It is difficult to accept that the action was Parliament’s own,” he insists. He thinks the president did not deliberately challenge the dismissal of his two most important ministers.
He argues that it was not for the ministers to take action against Pakistan for the artillery barrage on Kunar. “Based on Article 64 of the Constitution the president has the duty of announcing war.”
According to Muzhda, the two ministers had said as much when they were questioned by parliament on Aug. 4. “The defence minister said the Ministry of External Affairs has sent a letter to Pakistan. It is not his fault that Pakistan has not reacted,” Muzhda says defensively. In his opinion “Parliament did not accept the answer of the defence minister because the dismissal of the two ministers had been already planned. Karzai did not want to undertake the responsibility of the dismissal of two ministers.”
Trust and mistrust
President Karzai acceded to Parliament’s wishes. However, he told an emergency session of the National Security Council that he has asked the two ministers to stay on till their replacements were found – evidence that the two continued to have the president’s trust.
MPs have questioned the government’s decision. On Aug 7, speaker of the Wolesi Jirga, Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi, challenged the presidential order as “illegal”. He said, “We count the order of the president for the continuation of work of the dismissed ministers as against Article 2 of the law on caretaker ministers and contrary to the expectation of Parliament as well as the people of Afghanistan.”
Mohammad Iqbal Safi, MP from Kapisa, observed that the sensitive security situation in the country does not warrant Wardak and Muhammadi’s continuing as caretaker ministers. “Acting ministers don’t have as much authority, which could jeopardise public security,” he said.
Safi said the president had promised to tackle corruption and clean his government at the meeting in Tokyo of international donors. “His first step would be to respect the decision of Parliament,” he said.
Addressing a press conference in the MoD on Aug 7, Wardak, who has been defence minister since 2004, said he was stepping down because he “believed in democracy and respected the decision of Parliament.”
How come the minister of foreign affairs and head of intelligence were spared?
Sadiqizada Neeli, MP, confirmed that while their original plan was to impeach four ministers, members collected the required number of signatures to vote against only Karzai’s defence and interior ministers.
